


Qui Gemit In Exilio

by LucyLovecraft



Category: Ogniem i Mieczem | With Fire and Sword (1999), Trylogia | The Trilogy - Henryk Sienkiewicz
Genre: Childhood Memories, Christmas Music, Domestic, F/M, Flashbacks, M/M, Multi, OT3, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 00:58:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16843945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucyLovecraft/pseuds/LucyLovecraft
Summary: Jurko Bohun returns to the two people that his heart calls home. Music unlocks things deep inside him, as it always has.





	Qui Gemit In Exilio

**Author's Note:**

> I had to kick this one out of the nest without much time for editing, so please point out any typos or other errors that you happen to see!

Light and sound shattered the still night as the lord came home. The torches in the servants’ hands shone haloed through steaming breath. Horses stamped and snorted, eyes wide in the dancing firelight. The two men laughed as they handed their mounts’ bridles to the waiting grooms. Bundled as they were in furs and capes, it would have been hard to tell one from the other, but as they made their way across the yard to the great house, the taller of the two put his arm around the other’s broad shoulders.

“My God,” the tall man could be heard saying, “what a blessing to see you so soon! We had not expected you for a week at least.”

“Ey, and how was I to keep away, when I knew you two were waiting for me?”

The first man laughed again: a bright, ringing sound that made even the half-frozen watchman smile to hear it.

No one heard what his friend said to him then, soft and low. The men slipped into the house. And when they had closed the doors behind them and were alone in the shadows of the hallway, no one saw their embrace.

“I’ve missed you,” Jan said at last. He'd taken off his gloves to touch Bohun’s cheek, fingers warm on wind-chilled skin.

Bohun let out a sigh that shed every care he'd found since leaving.

“It's good to be home.”

“How I love to hear you say that.” When Jan had kissed him again, he said: “Come, let us see Helena. I can’t wait to see how happy she will be.”

As they moved through the house, Jan leaned in close to tell Bohun all the news of home: a domestic chronicle of children’s colds, frost-bitten livestock, and household pests. Bohun listened in breathless bliss, letting belonging steal softly into his soul.

So rapt was his attention that he did not truly hear the sung words until they were mere inches from the door to the main chamber.

A woman’s soft mezzo-soprano could be heard, with the piping voices of two children accompanying her:

 _“Shepherds heard the angels say:_  
_‘Christ is born to you this day._  
_Bethlehem His lowly place of birth,_  
_Born so humbly to this earth._  
_Lord of creation.’”_

Both men stood, listening in the darkness. The door stood ajar. In the fire-gilded room beyond, Helena sat with her lute, Jaremka and Longinek at her knee.

“What greater happiness could there be than this?” Jan asked softly.

Bohun did not hear him. He shivered despite his furs.

Bohun looked in from the darkness on a warm golden world.

He watched out of the depths of the past, and he remembered.

_He remembered._

The night had been cold. But all winter nights were cold. It was only ever a question of degree. Yet the air had been full of such smells of food (fresh bread, marbled meats, honey, and sugar, and spice) that he could no longer divert his mind from the void in his belly. He was hungry. He wept to be so hungry. He was cold, too. His bones had forgotten what warmth meant.

Bohun crept up to the house. Dark though it was, he slunk low to the ground, then clawed his way through the heaped snow fallen from the roof until he was in the sheltered hollow beneath the eaves. Once sure he was safe, he lay a while, panting. His body pressed against the side of the house, though in truth it was no warmer than the air around him. But he was near the kitchens. He could smell them, following the smoke of their fires with the unerring instinct of a dying thing.

Grimacing, he forced himself up and crawled towards his goal like a rat. They had not noticed when he flitted within the walls amongst the bright chaos of the cavalcade returning from church. They would not notice him now, dark and small as he was.

There it was: the door to the kitchens.

Only courage and madness had kept him alive so far. They would not fail him now.

Bohun sprang for the door, feet slipping on the packed snow. Once his rag-wrapped hands touched the handle he held his breath, listening.

Nothing.

Not a sound—or no sounds of footsteps or chopping knives or the soft rhythms of kneaded dough.

Though the loud creak of the hinges made his hair stand on end, Bohun heaved it open and slipped inside.

For a moment, he could only stand there, body shocked at the sudden absence of cold. The kitchen was empty of any human soul. Yet where he had imagined all those tantalising dishes lain out before him there was only a pot, swung away from the fire and hanging on its chimney-crane.

Bohun ran to the hearth, dragging up a low stool and wrenching a ladle from its hook. Tottering atop the stool, he sank the spoon into the lushly simmering stew, crying out at the first taste that seared his mouth.

He tasted no more, but only ate.

Spoonful after spoonful he ate, barely chewing. His stomach began to protest—too much rich food, and too quickly, crammed into a starving body. With a sob, he stopped. He’d seen others gorge themselves into an untimely grave. He was not going to die like that. No, if he was to die, it would be a death worth singing of, like in the blind minstrels’ songs. He’d promised that to himself: the first and only oath he’d ever sworn.

It was then that he heard the music.

 _Music._ His heart stopped.

Irresistibly, he followed the sounds as he’d followed the scent of food. His body fed, his soul yearned for this—the only thing of beauty he could afford.

Coming to the kitchen door, he opened it a crack, and looked in on a room that dazzled his eye: bright robes and shining furs, glinting jewels and scabbards. A great crowd of people, each one beautiful to his eyes, their faces flushed and full with health, gathered together as though all the wealth of the world (or so it seemed to his eyes) had been brought together in one place.

And they sang.

 _“Thus the Lord through his great love,_  
_Came from heaven, up above._  
_No great place, grand or costly had He here,_  
_But a manger cold and drear._  
_Lord of creation.”_

As the song ended, Jan opened the door, smiling with all his heart.

“I’m home, my loves!”

Bohun swayed as memory released him from its spell.

Helena’s exclamation of joy was utterly drowned in their sons’ delighted cries. The two boys bowed to their father, as was proper. Then all propriety dissolved when he opened his arms to them. They ran in a puppy tumble of arms and legs, clinging to him and talking over each other.

“And do you know who I’ve found?” Jan asked his sons conspiratorially.

Attention immediately focused on the door behind him.

Jan glanced up at Helena, anticipating the joy on her face.

But she was white as a sheet, staring over Jan’s shoulder. Jaremka and Longinek had fallen silent, eyes wide and uncertain.

“Oh Jurko,” Helena whispered in the silence. “Oh Jurko, I’m sorry.”

In a few quick strides she had crossed the room. Jan caught only the briefest glimpse of Bohun’s face. Without thinking he placed himself between his children and what he’d seen in those blue-green eyes. Such desolations of memory he’d seen on the battlefield, but even he was shocked to see eyes like that here in the warm heart of their home.

“I’m so sorry,” Helena said again. She’d thrown her arms around Bohun’s neck. His face was hidden against her shoulder. She stood on her toes, one hand stroking his hair, her eyes shut. “Shh,” she said. “I’m sorry. If I’d known you were here, I wouldn’t have ever sung—”

“It’s only a _song!”_ Bohun hissed.

“Shh, I know. I know.”

“Why? Why should that matter, out of everything—out of everything that—”

“Only God can know all things.” Her voice quavered as she said it, but her arms held him tight.

“Papa?” Longinek whispered, tugging at his father’s sleeve. “What’s wrong with Uncle Jurko?”

His brother tried to shush him, but Bohun had already wrenched away from Helena, scrubbing at his face with his hand.

He was ghastly pale, but when his eyes fixed on Longinek’s round little face, he sank at once to his knees. Jan knew how Bohun hated to frighten the children.

Longinek, who’d never yet connected “Uncle Jurko” with the dangerous “Bohun” their Grandfather Zagłoba told him of, slipped beneath his father’s protecting arms and approached the kneeling man.

“Uncle Jurko? Why are you crying?”

Bohun shook his head, throat working.

Longinek paused, uncertain.

“I—” Bohun’s voice was a croak. “That song has always made me very sad.”

“But it isn’t a sad song.”

“I know.”

Longinek considered. Then, slowly, he put his small arms around Bohun’s neck.

“I’m sorry we made you cry,” he said gravely.

“Ey, don’t worry, little one. I’ll be all right,” Bohun said, resting his cheek against the boy’s dark head. He raised his eyes to Helena’s shining face, and thence to Jan’s. “I’ll be all right.”


End file.
